


Pride

by hazelwho



Category: Canadian 6 Degrees, Harper's Island
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-16
Updated: 2011-10-16
Packaged: 2017-10-24 16:40:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/265642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hazelwho/pseuds/hazelwho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A glimpse at life for John Wakefield and friend (named in the story, but not here - huge giant spoiler-y spoilers for the whole show!) before the series.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pride

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mizface](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mizface/gifts).



> Written for the fabulous Mizface for the [dS/c6d Homecoming/Mini-Exchange](http://ds-noticeboard.livejournal.com/1429888.html). HUGE thanks to Lucifuge5 for her beta work - she made this a _much_ better story.

It takes me almost a year track down the paperwork and then to find him again. He’s working as a busboy in Seattle. As I watch the diner, Henry comes out the side door with a bag of trash. No one else is around, so I step out from the shadows. He senses me behind him and turns around. He meets my gaze and I see recognition, acceptance even, but no fear.

I tell him who I am and how I've been searching for him his whole life. I brought what proof I could find, but he already sees the truth of it. They lied to him and hid his true identity from him, just like they lied to and stole from me. He sensed the falsehood on some level his whole life, and has been waiting all this time for someone to tell him who he really is. He feels our connection, just as I did when I came across him in the woods that day – a lost boy with Sarah’s eyes and my mouth.

We are alike, my son and I. Wronged by that woman, we'd both been thrown away in favor of her new husband and her new child. She tried to keep my son from me, deny his existence, and her husband told lies to get me thrown in a cage like an animal. They didn’t understand though, that when you take _everything_ from a man, he has nothing left to lose.

They set me free to become what they said I was all along, and I had my revenge on them. I took back what had been mine, claiming Sarah from Mills one last time, and making sure his daughter would find her mother. As for Sarah…I watched the life slip from her eyes. The last thing she saw was my face and the last thing she heard was my promise that I would find my child and take him back.

Henry understands. He understands all too well what it is to love someone so much that you would die for them, and then be betrayed by that person. I would have spent my life with Sarah, given her anything. I would have raised my child with her and provided for my family. I would have taught my son how to throw a ball, how to fish. She stole that from me, from us, but she couldn’t keep us apart. I have my son back now, and I will teach him how to hunt. How to kill. I will help him get his revenge, and make my own complete.

It’s easier than you think, taking a life. All it takes is a sharp blade and knowing where bones run under flesh and where a knife will slip easily in to a body. It’s not hard, but it does take practice. The first time we go hunting, Henry watches me. The second time, we do it together. The third kill is his alone.

The alley smells of urine and stale cooking grease. It is dim, lit only by the yellow glow of a sodium lamp in the parking lot around the corner. The girl has dark hair and dark eyes, and she looks more surprised than anything else. They are both facing me and Henry is holding her up, his left arm wrapped around her waist in a mockery of a lover’s embrace. His right hand is darkened with blood, but he still has a good grip on the buck knife he has pushed between her ribs.

She struggles and sputters as her lungs fill with blood. He holds her tight and whispers to her, “—take away everything, everyone else, so that I’m all you have left…I’ll be your whole world, Abby, just like you were mine…“ He twists the knife just like I taught him to and with a final gurgle she dies. He looks up at me as he lets her fall, his eyes wide with wonder, and he grins.

“Dad?” he prompts, looking to me for approval.

We are connected, my Henry and I – I feel the exhilaration of the hunt and satisfaction of his kill as if it were my own. I can feel his strength, the stickiness of his hands, and the hate in his heart. I smile back at my son and nod. It’s almost time now.


End file.
